


i hear the voice of rage and ruin: shorts from the 'bad moon rising' saga

by badskeletonpuns, harpers_mirror (SapphireBryony)



Series: bad moon rising [2]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, One-Shots, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-15 09:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7217479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireBryony/pseuds/harpers_mirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Follows several hours after the events of the first part of the series. Maxwell and Jacobi may have lost a lot today, but they still have each other.</p><p>(chapter by harpers_mirror)</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. helpless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows several hours after the events of the first part of the series. Maxwell and Jacobi may have lost a lot today, but they still have each other.
> 
> (chapter by harpers_mirror)

“I’ve never killed anyone before,” she whispered hoarsely in the darkness. Jacobi, who’d thought she was asleep and had been nearly there himself, struggled to sit up and see her through the gloom of her quarters. He’d tucked her into bed hours ago and had settled into an armchair to wait out the long and awful night, not wanting to sleep, because sleep would mean waking up and remembering that Warren - remembering what had happened. 

“What was that, 'Lana?” he asked, having only heard half of her quiet comment.

“I said, I’ve never killed anyone before, Daniel. Not until today.”

Jacobi disentangled himself from the blanket he’d wrapped himself in, and made his way over to her bed to perch on the mattress beside her. Sifting through the blankets, he found one of her hands and wrapped it in both of his. Shoving down the unexpected pain he felt at the sight of her pale, drawn face, he said, dryly, “Well we _both_ know that’s not true. Remember the incident with the neurotoxin on the Phaeton? Or the one at the Antarctica base? Or the other other one in - ”

She started crying and he immediately shut up, feeling like a jackass. “Maxwell, don’t - I just meant - I was just trying to make you feel better...” Jacobi trailed off, floundering for words in an altogether unfamiliar way. “I’m sorry. I know it’s different. My first time, I threw up after. Kepler made fun of me for a week.” 

To his horror, even just speaking Kepler’s name made his throat close up and he stopped trying to talk for a moment. Maxwell was still sobbing, the trauma of the day and of what she had done and seen finally catching up to her and it made him feel so helpless. He was in charge of them now. Their little ragtag crew: Jacobi, replacing a leader whose death he hadn’t even had a chance to process yet. Maxwell, who was clinging to his hand like he was all that was holding her together. And Eiffel, who had disappeared immediately after coming aboard, emerging only once to swipe a bottle of Kepler’s whiskey and vanish once again. 

Daniel felt the lump rise in his throat and his eyes had gone hot and scratchy. Swallowing hard, he kicked off his shoes, let go of Alana’s hand long enough to shuck out of his jacket and then slid under the blankets with her, pulling her in close against him. 

Only then, with her tears soaking his tee shirt and his cheek pressed against the top of her head, did he let himself cry for all they had lost.


	2. you're just hopeless enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did Eiffel end up working with Maxwell and Jacobi after the events of the bloodbath?  
> Sadness. That's how.

Eiffel honestly wasn’t sure how he’d gotten in this position. 

That was a lie. 

He knew all too well how he’d ended up sitting on the floor of an elevator in a Goddard office, with a black eye and a broken arm and a feeling in his chest that hurt worse than both of those things combined. 

Rewind to ten minutes ago - Eiffel, stepping into this same elevator with a stack of papers and utter lack of a will to do anything with them. 

No, that wasn’t far enough.

Rewind to exactly a year ago, today - Eiffel, stepping off of a wheezing shuttle without a best friend or a best girl or anyone else. This was not supposed to be the way it ended - the heroes never die and the sidekick never makes it back to earth, friendless and jobless. But that was what happened.

He didn’t have anywhere to go. A failed communications officer from a failed space mission, barely more than a footnote in someone’s astronomy textbook. 

Goddard offered him another job.

And wasn’t that how this all started in the first place?

He accepted.

Just like before. Some things never change. The universe keeps expanding, the earth keeps turning, and Minkowski stays dead because Douglas Fernand Eiffel can never do anything right. 

So he worked in a Goddard corporate office for a year in some smoggy city where the only stars were the ones on TV and buildings were crammed together like a tetris game, no terrifying vacuum of space only a few sheets of metal away. 

He hated it. 

He did it anyway. 

So he was taking a stack of files (personnel files, something inside him says, these were people just like you and Hera and Lovelace and Minkowski and Goddard killed them, would have killed you if you weren’t too incompetent to even rebel against them right) to the archives. And he got in an elevator. 

And then someone shouted to hold the doors open, so he hit the doors because that was just what you did. (Impoliteness in Goddard offices tended to be a more fatal mishap than it was in most careers.) 

And Daniel Jacobi ran into the elevator. 

Somebody shot Minkowski. 

Daniel Jacobi could be that somebody. 

Eiffel took a deep breath, the stack of papers he held shaking slightly and the edges crumpling under his grip without him even realizing he was tightening his grip. (Even if someone else had held the gun, she’d jumped in front of him. She’d died protecting him.)

He was seeing red now. Or maybe it was just a memory of her blood in the air, the bitter metallic scent of it and the thick wet gleam and that harsh red, even redder than her hair.

Jacobi snuck a glance at him, and out of the corner of his eye Eiffel could see Jacobi open his mouth to say something. 

“Of all the people I could’ve gotten stuck in an elevator with and it just had to be you,” Jacobi mused, and his voice was teasing and light and he could have murdered one of the few people who’d ever given a damn about Eiffel and he didn’t even care. 

And so Eiffel lunged for his throat.

And Eiffel failed, because what else was he supposed to do? 

And now here he sat, with a broken arm and a bruised face. Still alive. Still alone. 

Jacobi paused on his way out, hit the button so the door would stay open. 

“You know,” he said, utterly serious. “There’s still a job for you in SI-5 if you want it. I don’t care what Cutter says, you’re the only other person than Maxwell who knows exactly what happened on that ship. We should stick together.” 

And, well, it wasn’t like Eiffel had anything better to do with his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a prompt meme on tumblr. Was supposed to be funny shenanigans, but got SAD. This chapter was written by badskeletonpuns! catch me as wendy-comet on tumblr if you want to send more prompt memes for more sadness! (or fluff. it's like emotional roulette.)


	3. never should have let this happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eiffel has joined up with the remains of SI-5 but that doesn't mean he's moved on. Set approximately a year after the events of "Lost All Hope of a Happy Ending."
> 
> (chapter by Smilodonmeow)

Alana’s ragged breathing had disappeared, the noise replaced by the soft hum of machinery. You weren’t supposed to put someone into cryo if they were injured, there was no guarantee they’d wake up at the end of it. You weren’t supposed to let your teammate get injured in the first place, not when the closest thing you had to a doctor specialized in metal and wire not flesh and neurons and besides was lying in a pool of far too much of her own blood, the enemy’s taunts ringing in your ears. Jacobi stroked the top of the cryo chamber in lieu of petting her hair, holding her hand. Eiffel stood back, watching the two of them, apart from their suffering.

Jacobi wasn’t being fair, saying Eiffel wasn’t feeling this. Eiffel had cried when they’d carried her back to the ship. But Jacobi didn’t care. He wasn’t Kepler.

Kepler would never have let this happen.

“Eiffel,” Jacobi said, his voice rough from shouting. “We need to talk about this.”

Eiffel nodded, his face wet. “She’s gonna be okay, right? Iceman will rise again – I guess Icewoman is a better name for Maxwell -” He was babbling, and Jacobi cut him off.

“Eiffel. When we were in the firefight, Maxwell and I could have used some backup.” Eiffel’s face twisted and maybe Jacobi would have stopped if he could have. If Jacobi didn’t need to be Kepler now. “A third flamethrower might have stopped them before they got a shot off.”

“I know.” He had shrunk into himself somehow, so he took up less space, so less light hit him. “I can’t – every time I step into the range, I pick up the gun, I think of her. If I had been faster, if I knew how to fire back.” Eiffel’s breathing was as ragged as Maxwell’s had ever been. “She should have lived. Not me. She was better than me. If she’d lived, she could have protected Alana.”

Jacobi slid away from Alana and gathered Eiffel in his arms. “Minkowski’s dead. All we can do is try to live up to their memory now.” He didn’t mention Kepler’s name, knew it would only hurt Eiffel more to remember him. But Jacobi couldn’t stop thinking of him, his commander, his love. “They didn’t like cowards. They would have wanted us to keep fighting.” Eiffel nodded against Jacobi’s uniform. “I’ll come with you if you want. As soon as we get Maxwell to hospital, you’re learning to incapacitate a target with a single shot.”

Eiffel’s voice was muffled by layers of fabric. “A person.”

“Someone who’s trying to kill us, just like they were today. We’re SI-5, we look after each other. Whatever it takes.” Jacobi looked at the cryo chamber again, reminded himself of the stakes. “We protect each other.”


End file.
